I sent Tara the message I wrote out ("Hey love...I know that I'm not going to be invited to everything you guys do, but to plan a trip and not invite me and then ask me to bake cupcakes for you guys... I have to admit I'm a little hurt.")

She responded by apologizing sincerely, saying that she didn't think I'd be able to leave my husband and son for that long, and she had assumed I wouldn't want to because of my social issues. [I genuinely appreciate that she's sensitive toward my social issues, even if she was off the mark in this case ] She said that they had been looking for a 4th person to join them and would love if I could go, and specified "I'm not just saying that to soothe your feelings. We really would love to have you."

So, all's well that ends well, and thank you all for the advice!

Logged

"From a procrastination standpoint, today has been wildly successful."

Happy endings are great! What stuck out to me with your original post was that this wasn't like Tara. If a person is behaving abnormally, I think that's cause to give them the benefit of the doubt that there's a misunderstanding.

Awesome! And this is why I think people should always say something directly, once, when something like this happens--because the situation *could* have ended up you feeling hurt and just wondering 'why why why' while Tara went on obliviously, and thought 'I really wish I could see more of CakeBeret'. (Yep, I've seen these things happen too!)

Definitely an 'ignorance rather than malice' thing, I think. And I can understand why she might think you didn't want to go. Til I read the update I wondered if maybe you were the only one with a small child and she'd kind of slotted you into a different category that had nothing to do with closeness. Not all my friends want to go to the bar, not all my friends want to do a tabletop RPG, and so my invitation group for those two things would be very different!

Seriously I think so much grief could be prevented if people just didn't assume someone can't come unless, you know, you invite them and they say they can't.

The other side of coin, though, is that rejection hurts, even if I am the person who gives an invitation and it is my invitation that is rejected.

So, if I just keep asking, but the other person is genuinely busy, eventually I would end the friendship with a person who always rejects my invitations.

Hence - the people who assume it is pointless to ask someone too busy or too depressed to come most of cases can also be just attempting to get less of rejection

Yeah, I've been on that end of it before. You invite someone multiple times and the answer is always no, even for legitimate reasons. But after a while, no matter why they are saying no, it still feels like rejection.

When that happens, I always just firmly lob the ball into their court. If they really want to pursue/continue the friendship, they need to take the first step next time. Otherwise, well, no biggie, I guess they just don't want to. Oh well.

But regardless of that, friendship is a two-way street. If I find that I'm always the one initiating contact, I eventually back off. That's why I suggested to the OP to be the one to initiate things (and I still believe she should do this going forward). It's great when you invite a friend to do something and they accept. But as evidenced by this thread, it's a really nice feeling when people ask you to join them for a social activity. It's a nice gift to be the one to do the asking.